


Something Blue

by delawana



Series: Time to be Storytellers Weekly Prompts [1]
Category: Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age: Origins - Awakening
Genre: F/M, Friendship After Breakup, Friendship/Love, King Alistair (Dragon Age), Romantic Friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-15
Updated: 2019-10-15
Packaged: 2020-12-17 00:08:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 896
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21045044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/delawana/pseuds/delawana
Summary: King Alistair spends a moment with the Hero of Ferelden, his one-time love, in his palace in Denerim.





	Something Blue

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for the [Reddit weekly prompt](https://www.reddit.com/r/dragonage/comments/ddlnkq/spoilers_alloctime_to_be_storytellers_the_dragon/f2lhimx/) "A soft breeze, a gentle touch, a sigh, and the color blue," as part of the love interest POV theme.

The rose bushes in the garden of the palace in Denerim were in full bloom. Alistair liked to imagine that it was the flowers thumbing their nose to the Blight.  _ You didn’t win and we’re still here _ , they said, never acknowledging how fragile they had become as they stood up straight and proud. Roses always made Alistair think of her, his warden who had saved them all. She was beautiful, and delicate too if one could get past the prickly thorns. Her spirit was harsh and unbending as iron but she had never been anything but soft to him. A gentle breeze ruffled his hair, and he could almost imagine that she had done it, his Lyna.

She hadn’t though. He’d lost the right to playful hair ruffles when he’d left her that day at his uncle’s estate. The haunted disbelief in her eyes was a memory he couldn’t soon forget; they were the eyes of a man with a sword in his heart rapidly coming to terms with his own mortality.

“The Chancellor would like to see you, Your Majesty,” a servant said with the slightest of taps to his shoulder, interrupting his reverie and directing him to the war room.

“Well, I wouldn’t want to keep the  _ Chancellor _ waiting now would I?” If his joking tone had sounded strained, the servant gave no show of it in his polite smile. 

She had asked to be Chancellor, to help him through the transition to ruling, she said. Always trying to look out for him, that one. He was grateful for it; she had a far better head for politics than he did. Sometimes when Anora was teaching the both of them some finer point of protocol that he found himself completely unable to grasp he wondered if he could just walk away and let the two of them rule. 

On the surface, very little had changed since the day he’d ripped out his own heart and left it bleeding with hers on Uncle Eamon’s nice carpet. She’d never said a word of reproach to him, but there was a wall between them that neither would ever point out. It was all entirely proper, she was no more than a good friend, his best friend even, but as though by some unspoken agreement they never touched. Perhaps one day he would be able to hug her again, but not yet. 

He opened the door to the war room and saw her: Lyna Mahariel, Commander of the Grey and Chancellor of Ferelden, standing by herself next to the long oaken table. She wore new armour, blue and silver, with griffons on the breastplate, and he had to remind himself to breathe. She could have been dressed in rags and still would have made his heart beat faster. No, no, no, he had chosen this, he could have a normal family for the first time in his life, he was determined to be fair to his wife. But he  _ loved _ Lyna, loved her so much that he didn’t know what to do with himself when he was around her, and he wasn’t sure if he could ever learn to feel that for his brother’s widow no matter how hard he tried.

“So, you’re back from Orlais then?” he asked, striding confidently into the room and putting on a grin he wasn’t sure he felt. “I suppose the Orlesian wardens gave you those fancy new clothes?” Mimicking twirling a moustache he continued, “‘Hon hon hon Mademoiselle Lyna, zis shade of blue is ze most fashionable zis season!’” She laughed at his exaggerated Orlesian accent and ridiculous gestures, not very much, but she  _ did _ and that was a triumph. It was so much harder to make her laugh now. He’d always liked the way she laughed.

“You’re an idiot, Alistair.” Her eyes rolled toward the ceiling, a spark of the affection that had once been present shining in their deep green depths.

“Hey!” he said with mock offense as he crossed his arms. “I don’t think you’re supposed to say that to the king.”

“You’re the king idiot, Alistair.”

He smiled, a big, broad smile that he hoped wasn’t too dopey. It probably was. She always seemed to bring out that goofy side of him.

“Here, I saved a bit of fabric for you. To remember us wardens by.”

Lyna opened her hand, revealing a little blue rectangle of cloth. Their hands brushed each other as he took it, an electricity flowing through the touch that nearly broke his resolve. If he took her hand, held her, kissed her, told her he loved her he was sure she wouldn’t pull away. Then her hand was gone, tucked away behind her back. She looked away at the floor and sighed almost imperceptibly. When their eyes met once more she had collected herself and her features had become stony, an impassive wall of duty. 

“We have business to discuss,” she said formally, failing at hiding the sadness in those eyes he knew so well. 

The guilt Alistair felt for leaving tore at him again, but this was the path he had chosen, the one she had put him on, and he must walk it.

* * *

When she left for Amaranthine he often sat in council meetings with his hand in his pocket, holding the little scrap of blue fabric and remembering his warden.


End file.
